1. Description of the Prior Art
The removal and disposition of hypodermic needle syringes after the needles of such syringes have been inserted into and withdrawn from a patient's body member have always been a matter of concern in the medical and dental fields. Medical and dental personnel ordinarily take great pains to avoid being pricked or stuck by any such needle since it is possible through a rupture of the skin of any such personnel, for the latter to become infected with whatever bacteria or virus may be carried by the patient into whose body part the needle has been inserted and from which it has been withdrawn. With the recognition in recent years of the danger of becoming infected through a used needle with the HIV virus, the concern of those persons charged with removing needles from syringes after patient use has become almost phobic. No one wishes even to handle used syringes for disposition even in waste containers, or handling waste containers in which needles and/or syringes have been deposited. The concern is that if the handler has even a slight scratch or other breach in his or her own skin, whether caused by the needle itself or through some prior wounding, it could result in the virus passing into the bloodstream of the handler.
In an effort to avoid this possibility, a number of expedients have been devised, some of which, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,454,944, 4,890,734, 4,892,191, 5,183,156 and 5,205,409, provide for containers to receive a number of syringe needles. A problem with such devices is that they may occupy a substantial amount of table or counter space and may not be dumped until the end of the day, or at some other convenient time. The containers themselves must then be carefully scrubbed, autoclaved or otherwise cleaned.
Recognizing the desirability of individual dispositions of needles themselves, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,836,373 and 4,915,698 have disclosed angular hollow receptacles into which a needle may be inserted for deposit and retention. These devices, however, appear to require some means on their bases to secure them at the angles shown in the patent drawings. Also, because of their narrow mouth openings, inserting a needle and its cap into the devices may result in some "misses" which could result in the needle depositing some of its contaminant around the top of the device, or even pricking anyone holding the receptacle. These latter devices also appear to be expensive to manufacture so that it may be costly to the facility to use and throw away such a receptacle after each individual use. Also, they are not adapted for use with disposable syringes.
What is needed, therefore, is an inexpensive receptacle into which a disposable syringe with its needle may be easily and accurately inserted, which receptacle may be safely picked up and discarded as soon as the needle has been deposited within the receptacle.